SPIKE RULES

spike
Originally uploaded by atlbiscuit.

To know spike is to love spike.....
Now some are thinking..well hell they have a dog named Xena... so spike must be named for that sexy vampire on Buffy the Vampire Slayer... well.. no..
It's hard to tell in this photo, but see.. spike only has one ear..
Van Gogh would have been too obvious.. so.. I chose spike... Spike's had a tough life.. but she gives as good as she gets..
See..she was found by one of our crews hovering in a doorway on a rainy night.. kids were throwing stones at her cause.. well she looked a little freakish.. she had a hematoma coming out of where her ear should have been..
The crew was a few hundred miles from here so they sent her home to me.. at the time she was smaller than the palm of my hand.. she looked pretty beat up. The vet thinks she went to sleep in a car engine to keep warm and someone cranked it.. taking her ear and part of her paw with it.
She has always been one of those cats who decides when and if she is going to let you pet her.. stand -offish..
I came home one night to flip on the light in the kitchen and found her there with dry spaghetti noodles all over the floor and a couple that looked like extra whiskers sticking out of her mouth.. Feral cats will eat anything.. this we know.. among her favorites.. asparagus and boiled peanuts.
So, spike joined the family.. and began her reign of terror.. and fun..
several years after I got her.. she got into a scrape with my roomate's cat.. she got an abscess on the base of her butt where her tail meets her body.. they operated on it.. but failed to mention that the fur wouldn't grow back.. so now she has this bald area right at the base of her tail.. a friend said it looks like one of disney's anamatronic animals where they've moved in a certain direction for so long the fur just has a way about it..
After butter and I started dating apparently spike wandered into the dryer while she had turned away.. butter didn't see her go it, but when she turned the machine back on she heard a thump...thump... she quickly opened the door only to see a paw stick straight out of the dryer.. followed by the rest of the cat who hit the floor a little stunned and then hid under the bed for hours.. butter didn't tell me about it for many months.. (after she was sure there was no brain damage I suspect.. though we've always thought because of the hematoma spike may be a lil 'touched'.
So get the visual.. no ear, a couple of pads on her paw missing and now a big ole bald spot..
My roomate was cooking dinner one night, and spike, being the feral that she is, faster than a shot, jumped up onto the stove and stole the meat right out of the hot pan.. my roomate was not happy.. She continued her reign and her stand offish-ness for quite some time..
then something new.. babies..
well.. not real babies...sock babies..
she began the practice of bringing us "babies" she would meow this low guttural meowing and bring in a sock.. and another.. and another.. one day we came home to a nest of socks.. spike resting happily on top of them.
it doesn't matter how we try to hide the socks.. she continually finds some and brings them to us..
when we moved into an apartment, butter had a basket of beanie babies we kept by the fireplace.. I would come home to find beanie baby trails.. and a couple of them right in the spot on my bed where I sleep. We always thank her and bring them back.
now she drags them downstairs.. and lots of times back upstairs as well if we are upstairs and there are any left downstairs..
One of our friends didn't realize for the longest time that it was spike doing this.. she apparently thought we were just slobs who left trails of socks around the house.. until one day she was there when spike did it.. and she was like. oooohhhhhhh that's why there are socks everywhere.. Now keep in mind we do pick them up.. she just drags them back out.. and the beanie babies too.. we thank her and put them back over and over and over..
Couple of years ago butter came home from work to house spattered with blood and little pawprints.. she traced it to the loft in th office.. but she couldn't find out where it came from.. we had recently gotten the new cat so we thought there may have been a fight.. nope.. everyone was fine.. all the cats were accounted for.. so she shook the treat can and they all came running.. they all took a treat.. but spike wouldn't eat hers.. (which is SO unlike her.. she's a hog) upon closer inspection butter realized that spike had blood all down the front of her.. turns out that spike had a collar that she didn't like.. so she tried to take it off and it got stuck in her mouth.. she thrashed around until it finally came off.. tearing her tongue in half in the process.. off to the vet..
no ear, part of a paw.. big bald spot.. now.. a tongue ripped in half...
they put her ina cone and sent her home.. this is when spike changed... she had to be between us when she slept.. had to be touching us.. she couldn't meow but she could purr.. so she did.. in a cone.. which acted like a huge megaphone..
so she purred.. all night.. loudly!
Spike's had an interesting life.. she's goin on 14 years with no signs of stoppin.. Our friend has already claimed her should anything ever happen to us.. cause spike is just that cool .. I sure hope she has enough socks though.. she's gonna need them!